Robert Stein (1950)

Robert Stein (1972)

Robert Stein (2000s)

About Me

editor, publisher, media critic and journalism teacher,
is a former Chairman of the American Society of Magazine Editors, and author of “Media Power: Who Is Shaping Your Picture of the World?” Before the war in Iraq, he wrote in The New York Times: “I see a generation gap in the debate over going to war in Iraq. Those of us who fought in World War II know there was no instant or easy glory in being part of 'The Greatest Generation,' just as we knew in the 1990s that stock-market booms don’t last forever.
We don’t have all the answers, but we want to spare our children and grandchildren from being slaughtered by politicians with a video-game mentality."
This is not meant to extol geezer wisdom but suggest that, even in our age of 24/7 hot flashes, something can be said for perspective.
The Web is a wide space for spreading news, but it can also be a deep well of collective memory to help us understand today’s world. In olden days, tribes kept village elders around to remind them with which foot to begin the ritual dance. Start the music.

Monday, August 13, 2012

And Now the Ugly Olympics...

After so many hours of seeing young people compete with grace, beauty and
strength in an atmosphere of human amity, Americans are back in the mean season
of politicians scoring points by playing to the crowds.

The President welcomes Paul Ryan to the race telling Iowans the new VP
nominee symbolizes “a vision I fundamentally disagree with” as his Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack goes for the jugular: “Take a look at the Ryan budget. Take
a look at what it does to farm families. It destroys the safety net.”

The sudden shift from Greek esthetics to Roman circuses will no doubt be
taken in stride by voters, although some may regret losing sight of races in
which runners are going all out toward the finish line without elbowing and throwing
gobs of mud at one another.

Even in the first lap of the marathon, Mitt Romney cancels an Orlando
campaign stop, pleading that he is "too exhausted to make the trip,"
suggesting that his choice of a younger, energetic running mate may pay off in
staying power, if not popularity.

Is it too “old” to be remembering the time only decades ago when voters
expected national leaders to offer something approximating truth, no matter how
ideologically skewed? Is it too “out of touch” to lament the time when
SuperPACs weren’t spreading lies that candidates themselves would be ashamed to
utter?

Those who vividly remember such times will welcome Ryan’s entry into the
Big Race. He won’t be half as nimble as Romney in evading his own history and vision for the future, he will drag the Tea Party Congress into the spotlight,
and he will give ideologically impaired independents a good, long look at where
the country has been heading in the past two years.

There
will be another benefit as well. In 1960 JFK confided he felt sorry for Nixon
having to get up every morning and decide who he is going to be that day. Romney,
of course, has the same problem, but Ryan does not. It will be good to have
someone on the ticket who knows who he is so voters can see exactly what they
would be getting.